Overview
Who
Tree Canada
What
- Illustration
- Digital Marketing
- Print Marketing
- Website Development
- Branding
- Logos and Corporate Identities
- Graphic Design
- Website Planning
- Website Design
- Printing
- Promotional Products
- Social Media
- Trade Show Displays
Challenge
The primary challenge in revitalizing Tree Canada’s brand and website was ensuring flexibility and longevity while maintaining alignment with its existing systems. The website needed a modular structure that allowed the team to easily manage content without disrupting their databases. Meanwhile, the brand required a more comprehensive visual identity, expanding beyond its limited two-shade green palette to better represent the diversity of Canada’s tree canopies. As Tree Canada’s team grew, the need for a foundational branding document became essential to maintain consistency across all communications. Additionally, establishing a distinct identity for National Tree Day was critical to enhancing engagement and recognition.
Target
The brand and website refresh targeted Tree Canada’s existing supporters and a broader audience, including younger generations and new donors. The goal was to modernize the organization’s visual identity while maintaining its strong reputation in the environmental sector. Expanding the brand’s colour palette and refining its design elements ensured greater representation of Canada’s diverse tree canopies, making the brand more engaging and visually compelling. By creating a clear and structured brand foundation, the project aimed to enhance recognition, increase engagement, and provide consistency across all communications, including National Tree Day initiatives.
Solutions
A New Leaf in Web and Branding
Tree Canada’s brand and website refresh focused on creating an engaging, modern, and sustainable digital experience while maintaining the organization’s core mission of environmental stewardship. Cyan Solutions implemented a strategic approach to deliver on both aesthetic appeal and functional usability:
Website Redesign with Modular Functionality:The website was completely revamped with a modular structure that allowed Tree Canada’s team to easily manage and update content. The design focused on enhancing user experience, with improved navigation, streamlined content, and integration with Tree Canada’s CRM (Razor Edge). The website was also built to be agile and expandable, accommodating future growth and content needs.
Comprehensive Brand Analysis: The team thoroughly assessed Tree Canada’s brand identity and its alignment with its core mission. This analysis informed design decisions, ensuring the brand’s visual elements better reflected the diversity of Canada’s tree canopies and resonated with a broader audience, including younger generations and new donors.
Brand Identity Expansion: Cyan Solutions modernized Tree Canada’s logo and expanded its colour palette to represent the variety of tree species across the country. This refinement provided a more inclusive and dynamic visual identity, ensuring the brand was recognizable and relevant to all communities.
Enhanced Visual Assets and Marketing Tools: To strengthen the brand’s presence and support National Tree Day, Cyan created a range of marketing collateral, including social media templates, event organizers’ toolkits, and branded graphics. These assets ensured consistent messaging and a unified brand experience across all channels.
Collaboration and Strategic Execution: Throughout the execution phase, Cyan maintained a collaborative approach, ensuring input from key stakeholders within Tree Canada. This partnership helped deliver creative solutions that were in line with the organization’s strategic goals, resulting in a refreshed brand and digital experience that positioned Tree Canada for future success.
Understanding the Needs
The team at Cyan Solutions took the time to fully understand Tree Canada’s history, challenges, and the diverse environmental landscape across Canada. This deep dive was essential for creating a brand and website that not only aligned with their core mission but also reflected the varied tree canopies and ecosystems from coast to coast. By listening closely to Tree Canada’s needs, we were able to craft solutions that would resonate with both current supporters and a new, younger audience.
Logo Refinement
Cyan Solutions worked to refine Tree Canada’s logo by cleaning up the visual identifier while preserving its core elements. The goal was to modernize the logo without losing the essence of what Tree Canada represents. By streamlining the design, the logo now features a cleaner, more contemporary look that remains versatile across various digital and print formats. This refined logo aligns with the refreshed brand, offering clarity and impact, while maintaining its strong recognition in the environmental sector.
To ensure Tree Canada’s brand was modern and accessible, Cyan Solutions focused on refining the typography while remaining true to its roots. The existing fonts were updated to create a more cohesive and polished visual identity. The new typography emphasizes clarity and readability, whether displayed online or in print materials. By selecting more versatile typefaces, the team ensured the brand remains consistent, professional, and easy to read across all communications.
Brand Guidelines
Cyan Solutions developed a comprehensive set of Brand Guidelines to ensure that Tree Canada’s new identity was consistently applied across all touchpoints. These guidelines compiled the updated logo usage, typography standards, and colour palette into a cohesive document, providing a clear framework for the organization and its partners. The document serves as an essential reference for maintaining brand integrity, enabling Tree Canada to effectively communicate its values while ensuring consistency in all visual representations.
As part of the brand refresh, Cyan Solutions expanded Tree Canada’s colour palette to better reflect the diversity of Canada’s tree canopies. The updated palette includes a range of rich, earthy tones alongside vibrant greens, offering a more dynamic and inclusive representation of the natural landscape. This expanded colour palette enables flexibility in design, enhancing the brand’s appeal across various media while staying true to Tree Canada’s environmental mission.
The final Brand Guidelines document compiled all the visual and design elements into a unified resource. It includes instructions on logo usage, typography, colour palettes, illustrations, and icons, offering a comprehensive blueprint for maintaining consistency across all brand applications. This document is essential for ensuring that Tree Canada’s brand remains cohesive and aligned with its mission, whether in digital or print communications.
National Tree Day Branding and Toolkit
Cyan Solutions designed a new logo for the National Tree Day, providing the day its own identifier. The logo features the Tree Canada identifier encircled by the event’s name in English and French.
Cyan also created a comprehensive National Tree Day Toolkit to assist Tree Canada’s staff and event organizers in planning and promoting their National Tree Day celebrations. This toolkit provided a wealth of resources, including event planning ideas, promotional strategies, and digital assets such as social media templates, banners, and graphics. By equipping organizers with these tools, the toolkit ensured consistent messaging and a unified brand presence across all National Tree Day events. It was designed to be easy to use, helping to maximize participation and engagement while promoting the importance of trees and environmental stewardship across Canada.
Website
Cyan Solutions led the complete revamp of Tree Canada’s website to enhance user experience and reflect the organization’s refreshed brand identity. The new website features a flexible modular structure, allowing Tree Canada’s team to easily update and manage content. With a focus on intuitive navigation and clear content hierarchy, the site ensures that visitors can quickly find relevant information about Tree Canada’s programs, initiatives, and events. The integration of Razor Edge CRM forms further streamlines the user experience, enabling event submissions and photo sharing with ease. Designed to be agile and expandable, the website is future-proofed to accommodate Tree Canada’s growing needs and engage a broader audience, from current donors to younger generations interested in environmental causes.
The modular design of the website was implemented in phases, allowing for flexibility and scalability. We ensured that the team could easily manage content while integrating necessary CRM tools for streamlined event management.
Printed and Promotional Items
To complement the digital brand refresh, Cyan Solutions also designed a range of print collateral that reflects Tree Canada’s updated identity. The print materials include brochures, hats, toques, polos, tablecloths, name badges, and travel bags—all featuring the new logo and brand colours. These items serve as both promotional tools and brand ambassadors, reinforcing Tree Canada’s commitment to sustainability while providing practical, branded assets for its team and supporters.
Cyan Solutions also developed a variety of print materials for Tree Canada’s events and public-facing initiatives. The roll-ups, signage, and backdrops were designed to be visually striking and aligned with the new brand identity. These large-format pieces serve to elevate Tree Canada’s presence at conferences, events, and community outreach programs, ensuring that the organization’s visual identity is consistent, professional, and immediately recognizable in any setting.
Icons and Illustrations
The illustrations created for Tree Canada feature a more modern and inclusive representation of Canada’s forests. Cyan Solutions replaced the traditional seedling with a baby tree, symbolizing growth and future potential. The new illustrations focus on urban tree environments and various tree species, providing a more relatable and expansive visual narrative. These illustrations help tell the story of Tree Canada’s work in a fresh and engaging way, highlighting the organization’s commitment to a greener future.
Cyan Solutions introduced custom icons to Tree Canada’s brand assets to enhance visual communication across both digital and print platforms. These icons were carefully designed to reflect key themes of sustainability, community engagement, and environmental stewardship. By using simple, recognizable shapes, the icons help convey complex ideas in a clear and accessible way, ensuring that the message is easily understood by diverse audiences.
Implementation
The implementation of Tree Canada’s rebrand was carefully coordinated to ensure smooth execution across all areas. Throughout the project, Cyan Solutions maintained strong communication with Tree Canada to ensure alignment with their vision and goals at every step. This close collaboration helped refine the approach and allowed for real-time feedback, which was crucial for timely adjustments.
Results
Cyan Solutions’ comprehensive overhaul for Tree Canada focused on modernizing the brand while preserving its core mission. The project included a refined logo, updated typography, and an expanded colour palette reflecting Canada’s diverse tree canopies. The website was revamped with a modular design to ensure easy content management and scalability. We also developed a National Tree Day Toolkit to support event organizers with consistent messaging and promotional materials.
Strong communication and close collaboration with Tree Canada throughout the project ensured alignment with their vision and goals. We maintained a clear, focused rollout strategy to ensure seamless execution across branding, web, and print. The result was a cohesive, future-ready brand identity that strengthens Tree Canada’s position for continued growth and community engagement.
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“We really appreciate the care that Cyan put into improving our website’s overall user experience. In addition to designing a beautiful, intuitive new site for Tree Canada’s supporters, our team is also pleased with the back-end experience. The flexibility of the WordPress page builder and components that Cyan created are light years ahead of our previous website.”
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